too tired. cannot detangle.

the prospect of writing's been taunting me all day. it's become a habit, a fix. write to the world, feel somewhat exculpated for being a generally lousy correspondent...

but alas. drive 90 miles, more when you go towards oak ridge by accident for fifteen, then work 10 to 9 with a break for sneaker-shopping in there somewhere... 50% off hurrah because the old ones have big holes in the toes and i should buy while i still have income even though it really doesn't make all that much difference when the lack of income is known to approach... i just can't ramble now about new apartments and the charms of a not-moldy-smelling place or of cultural consumptions like les triplettes de belleville because my head will surely hit the keyboard... or worse, it'll miss and i'll end up all upside down and concussed and so on.

i need mardi gras plans. i have no mardi gras plans. i have no energy to make mardi gras plans. happy mardi gras everyone.

ok, sleep. now. otherwise, delirium. fun but poorly looked upon.

it's official. whether you count by number of discs (3 vs. 2) or number of movies (5 vs. 2), i now own more dvds of silent movies than of talkies. mainly thanks to a box-set of two charlie chaplin and two buster keaton movies that suddenly showed up on wally world's $5.50 rack. i couldn't resist. and not that it's much of a collection either way, but it still struck me as pretty strange when i noticed the ratio. makes me want to run out and find sunrise (one of my favorite movies ever, silent or otherwise), metropolis, and nosferatu... just because.

i was thinking about it, and i blame it all on jane austen. (she may not have created the archetype, but she certainly did a lot to perfect it...)

whaddaya think?

happy valentine's day!

after suggesting many things i've seen, whattorent.com came up with fellini's 8 1/2. granted, i'm not going to get it tonight -- i've already got dernier metro and after the rehearsal to fill the sudden craving for subtitles -- but i think it's a fine idea.

as a sometimes-wannabe-copy-editor (please ignore the mess here; i know i'm a hypocrite), it sort of scares me that i apparently forgot how to spell "asterisk" some time ago. whether before or after becoming acquainted with everyone's favorite gaul, i don't know. but "asterix" is much harder to pluralize. not that spelling's that highly prized in the business e-mails i deal in anyhow, but i'm glad i checked before rambling about "asterixes" or "asterices"...

and the moral? if you value your linguistic precision, never ever ever read pun-filled foreign language comic books. or something like that...

can you distinguish between real and fake smiles? it's a neat little quizzie. i did better than i expected to - don't typically think of myself as very perceptive at these things, and i'm a lousy liar myself so i figured i wouldn't know the symptoms as well as most...

ok, quick background. you know milton, the guy from office space who's waaaaay too attached to his red swingline stapler? hate to say it, but i totally sympathize. i get pathetic over office supplies, and i agree that the swinglines are the best. but my big issue is pens. i can't stand most of the pens provided at the office. i was actually resorting to begging and pleading and trading with my co-workers when the spending freeze made us run out of the one kind i tolerate. i don't even have pretty handwriting, but i'm a freak about it.

anyways, i love fountain pens. i found this out in france, where they're plentiful and cheap. then i came back to the US... and, um, forget about it.

i still have my favorite, a plain metal fine-point one made by waterman. it still writes beautifully, it's got a nice weight to it. i paid about $8 for it.

unfortunately, most of the ones i've bought here in the states are leaky disasters. my dad found one that showed up in my xmas stocking last year that was fantastic for a while, but its nib's been feeling a bit under the weather here lately. other than that the best i've found in my price range are the disposable ones that pilot makes.

so delight quickly gave way to impulsiveness when i found a waterman fountain pen set including lots of ink cartridges and even a liquid ink converter in office max today. waterman! they who made the perfection that is my favorite pen! nearly $30, but dammit, if it doesn't leak it's worth it. and so far it's not leaking. and it's pretty -- all blue and gold detailing! and it doesn't skip!! medium-nibbed, but i suppose that i can forgive it.

boy, do i feel neurotic... but neurotically happy and pen-possessing!